ABSTRACT This study explores the relationship between the professional development of early childhood education teachers in Spain and their motivation to deliver physical education (PE). It examines five key dimensions: (1) initial and continuous training, (2) availability of resources, (3) motivation and beliefs about PE, (4) contextual influences, and (5) social recognition. Using a mixed-method design, 468 teachers completed a questionnaire, and 20 participated in interviews and focus groups. Findings emphasize the need for strong initial training and ongoing professional development to enhance teachers’ practical knowledge and motivation for PE. The study identifies significant challenges, including insufficient resources and lack of recognition of the importance of PE, which hinder effective PE delivery. Although teachers recognize PE’s importance, the study highlights the need to elevate its status within early childhood education. It provides crucial insights into current gaps in professional development practices and offers recommendations for improving policy and practice in this area.

ABSTRACT In 2020, the Covid-19 virus spread globally, strongly affecting people’s lives across different contexts. In Italy, it had a significant impact on children, families, and communities, leading to the temporary closure of Early Childhood Education and Care centers (ECECs). Consequently, new rules and safety protocols were introduced to prevent the spread of the virus. Addressing the literature gap on Covid-19’s impact on ECECs, this study examines the pandemic’s effects on the wellbeing and adjustment of children and teachers in Italian schools. Eleven female Italian teachers were interviewed in April and May 2021. Findings indicate that both children and teachers faced new and unexpected challenges due to Covid-19 within ECECs, raising concerns about what to expect from the post-Covid era. The pandemic also affected children’s behavior, with consequences for their development and social skills. However, results show that both children and teachers developed various strategies to adjust to the new conditions.

ABSTRACT This study examined factors and teacher practices that foster compassion in Ghanaian kindergarten classrooms. Situated within the sociocultural theory, the study sought to understand how compassion is enacted and nurtured by teachers in early childhood education settings. Data were collected from eight public Kindergarten teachers in the Cape Coast Metropolis through semi- structured interviews, allowing for in-depth exploration of teachers‘ perspectives and classroom practices. The data were analysed thematically to identify recurring patterns. The findings revealed that compassion is socio culturally entrenched and shaped by broader societal values, norms and religious teachings that emphasise care, reciprocity and love. Teachers drew on these cultural and moral elements to cultivate compassionate disposition among young children. Pedagogical strategies such as storytelling, guided peer interactions, role modelling and the creation of learning centres within the kindergarten classroom also emerged as key teacher practices for fostering compassionate behaviour. In addition, teachers organised community visits that allowed children to observe and experience compassion in action in real-life situations, while parental involvement and support further reinforced children’ s learning and behaviour beyond the classroom environment, highlighting the interconnected roles of school, home and community. Together, these findings call for the need for policy and pedagogical shifts that embed compassion within teacher education, curriculum design, and school culture. Such integration would ensure that compassion becomes a lived educational outcome rather than a peripheral moral and social outcome.

ABSTRACT Drawing on cultural-historical theorizing, this study aims to evaluate preschool teachers’ abilities to analyze and respond to children’s preconceptions across different science domains. It compares these abilities between pre-service and in-service teachers, who have varying levels of teaching experience, and explores the relationship between these abilities. The situational judgment test of preschool teachers’ analytical and responsive abilities (SJT-PTARAs) was used for this purpose. A total of 322 in-service teachers and 72 pre-service teachers from an eastern Chinese city participated in the online questionnaire. Psychometric analyses confirmed that the SJT-PTARAs is both a reliable and valid measurement scale. The results indicated that teachers’ analytical abilities (AAs) and responsive abilities (RAs) toward children’s preconceptions vary significantly across different science domains and teaching experiences. The relationship between these two abilities was found to be particularly complex, especially for pre-service teachers and those with over 16 years of teaching experience. These findings provide valuable cross-cultural evidence and a conceptual framework that can inform teacher education programs and STEM pedagogy globally.

ABSTRACT This study investigates preschool teachers’ readiness to implement AR-integrated STEM activities (ARISE) in China. Using a mixed-methods design (survey, n=527; interviews, n=7), it revealed a significant belief-confidence gap. While teachers endorsed the value of ARISE (M = 3.57), their implementation confidence was notably lower (M = 2.77), t(526) = 25.40, p < .001, d = 1.28. Qualitative analysis identified that this gap stemmed from teachers’ use of Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) as an internal filter for evaluating technological appropriateness, compounded by limited technical proficiency, resource availability, and pedagogical integration skills. The data further illustrated that although teachers recognized AR as an engaging tool for promoting inquiry and creativity, they often struggled to align it with young children’s developmental levels and classroom realities. Consequently, this study proposes the DAP-TPACK framework, which extends TPACK by integrating DAP as a core filtering mechanism. This framework not only advances theoretical understanding of teachers’ decision-making in technology adoption but also provides actionable insights for designing professional development programs and guiding sustainable AR integration in early childhood education.

ABSTRACT In this study, we apply the concept of multiactivity to explore early childhood educators’ daily work. To capture the phenomenon, we focus on moments when children exhibit heightened emotions in flexibly scheduled early childhood education and care (ECEC). We analyzed video observations of under-three-year-old children and their educators, asking how educators orchestrate multiactivity during moments when children display heightened emotions. While caring for a child in this state, the educators engaged in diverse and concurrent streams of action: they paid attention to other children’s needs, carried out daily tasks and engaged in discussions. To orchestrate such multiactivity, they employed versatile practices, for example, they alternated between and merged streams of action, adjusted their progress, and, in doing so, displayed their respective priorities. Overall, this study adds to our understanding of the complex and dynamic phenomenon of multiactivity and, importantly, contributes a new perspective on early childhood educators’ daily work.

ABSTRACT Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia have high populations of immigrants with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Previous studies have examined the nuanced relationships between immigrant families’ negotiation of language and identity choices. A national curriculum influences these choices. Supported by the theoretical framework of intersectionality, this paper uses comparative critical policy analysis to scrutinise how the early childhood curricula of the two countries inform intersectional pedagogies in acknowledging the interrelationships between language and identity. Intersectionality recognises that a single-focus lens is limited in addressing complex and layered social inequalities. It aims to understand the complexities by considering overlapping identities and experiences. This paper employs intersectionality as an analytical tool to critically examine the multifaceted domains of power and multidimensional inequalities, advocating for social justice and transformation. Conclusions drawn from the study’s findings highlight the significance of early childhood curriculum in providing equitable intersectional pedagogies that recognise and include children’s diverse languages and identities.

ABSTRACT This study examines the transitions children undergo in early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions. The micro-ethnographic study followed thirteen children in two Norwegian ECEC institutions, analysing their social practices during transitions. The aim is to gain insight how children negotiate subject positions and belonging among older peers. The study illustrates that boundaries for who belongs are shaped by social participants and the institutional structures. Although the transitioning children position themselves as older children, they face challenges related to being the youngest in their new environment of older peers. The findings also illustrate transitioning children’s active negotiations of subject positions and belonging as an older child. However, children construct boundaries between social actors through notions of differentiations between older and younger children. Moreover, the study highlights how notions about older or younger children may construct inclusionary or exclusionary boundaries for belonging and subject positions between children within the same group.

ABSTRACT Much research on children’s digital gameplay focuses on measuring detrimental effects, excluding more complex relational dynamics of family literacy practices. Approaches that focus on how families adapt available resources in novel and resilient ways to suit their own socio-cultural aspirations are under-utilised. We partnered with game developers to investigate how parents view emerging AI capacity within games for young children, particularly the degree to which technology increasingly constructs a digital self of users. A story-based learning game with machine learning capacity that adapts to children’s skills and interests was trialled with 11 families. Observations, focus groups and exit survey gave important insight into the ways families adapt traditional literacy practices in game space, and their understanding of AI developments including the tensions they felt between concerns about surveillance, on the one hand, and their desire that children not miss out or fall behind their peers’ developing digital literacy.

ABSTRACT The Early Childhood (EC) sector in the UK is facing a recruitment and retention crisis and fewer people are opting to study this subject at university. Exploring the aspirations of EC university students and the factors shaping them is therefore important for understanding what attracts people to careers in this sector, enabling course tutors to cultivate these aspirations. Sixty-four EC students at an English university participated in this qualitative research. Data were generated using a pedagogical task to elicit participants’ aspirations followed by focus group discussions to explore them further. The analysis revealed that participants have academic, professional, and personal aspirations. Many of these aspirations were found to be either emergent or divergent. The former theme suggests that EC students’ aspirations are still developing and may lack specificity while the latter suggests they may be in conflict with the aspirations that family, society and the government ascribe to them.